Tag Archives: yorkville illinois

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, What’s a Little Snow when There’s Work to be Done

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
____________

On Tuesday we got snow. According to those that measure these things, Yorkville got more snow than anywhere else in the Chicago area, 11.7 inches. My back can attest to that. Days later it’s still stinging from moving a few thousand pounds of it from around my house.

I always assume that snow like this will bring construction projects like the Blackberry Creek Dam Removal to a screeching halt. I assumed wrong, what’s a little snow. When I got to the site, three guys were working to remove the upper coffer dam that was laying all over the creek.

I’m sure there’s a little more of it left in the creek.

But the bulk of it has been removed.

In spite of all the snow a fair amount of work had got done this week. Back at the old dam, I checked out the pump area to see if there were any remnants of goldfish still around.

No signs of gold anywhere.

Quite a bit had been dredged out, but they seem to have stopped putting the excavator in the middle of it all. It looks like they had been doing the digging from off on the side. Walking on all that mud was difficult with my mere two hundred pounds. I was sinking in pretty deep. I could only imagine how much an excavator sinks in this stuff.

I was hoping they were going to dig out much more on the left hand side.

At a meeting on the project back in March of 2012, I pointed out how that whole left side looked like it might be a limestone ledge all the way down to the old creek bottom. I suggested that they just expose the limestone and leave it at that. I was able to walk along there for the first time and I still think that’s what it is.

It looks like they’re not going to bother though. That’s a shame. There are a couple of other creeks that I fish that have this same type of limestone ledge. Would be nice to see it here.

After getting the progress photos I wanted, I had to scour the area looking for leftovers. Following are the things that I find sitting on top. Makes me wonder what is buried under all that dirt. This looks like the remnants of an old park bench.

Though no goldfish were found, some of the carp I had seen the previous week had nowhere else to go and I’m sure they wouldn’t have fit into the pump hoses. The critters are slowly enjoying a muddy meal.

One of the last things I thought I’d find is a frog, dead or alive. This one, not so alive.

Not sure how old this bottle is, but they definitely don’t make them like this anymore. The glass is thick and has an interesting decoration around it’s middle. I took this one home and cleaned it up. Looks brand new. There are markings on the bottom that I hope will lead me to what it once contained.

I know this has to be fairly old. Don’t see too many skeleton key locks anymore.

When I came across these two bottles, I noticed the caps still on them. A little scrape of the mud revealed two full bottles of Bud Light. I considered taking them home to see if they still had any fizz or taste to them, but I wouldn’t drink this kind of beer swill if it were fresh and given to me for free. I passed.

Of course, I had to go check out the upstream area of the creek.

I already know a good half mile of that stretch. I know where the fish, if and when they show up, will be holding. Classic fish holding spots.

I also know that when I do go fish that stretch, to get back I have to wade back to where this picture was taken. I tried walking through those trees once in order to get back to my car.

I will never, ever try that again.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Rain, Ice, Snow Stops Everything

10 Replies

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
____________

The other day I got out when it stopped raining to take a look at the Blackberry Creek dam removal site. I still think it was a good idea to not go wandering around through all the mud, but I kind of wish I did. After everything froze over and then got covered in snow, it’s all white. Makes it hard to see the details.

I come from a couple of generations of roofers. My dad had me help him on a roof the first time when I was eight. This continued on and off into my teens. One day he said “I’m going to show you how hard this is so you do good in school and don’t become a roofer.” That pretty much worked, but I think now at 57, if I were a roofer, I’d still be working. Instead, I did the whole do well in school thing and became a graphic artist. At this age, no matter how good my skills are in the graphic arts, nobody wants you.

But that’s a post for another day.

Because of the early years in roofing, I like to think of myself as surefooted as a cat. I have no qualms wandering all over a roof and to this day I like to watch my wife squirm as I stand on the edge of a roof, cleaning out gutters and carrying on a conversation with her while she’s down on the ground. Simple pleasures.

That being said, this is what it looks like when a supposedly surefooted old guy steps on what he believed to be snow covered ground.

As I mentioned to someone recently about getting old, gravity is a bitch. And yes, it hurt, but I think my pride is more bruised than anything else.

There has been virtually no noise coming from across the river since the rain and I can’t blame them. Big ruts of frozen mud and layers of ice are everywhere. Plus the cold and the wind makes it brutal to be out there. A project needs to get done, but delays are sometimes welcomed in weeks like this. The old dam itself is pretty well covered in ice.

Some work had been done in the week before the rain. Now it’s going to be interesting to see how they are going to get all this water…

…to squeeze through this hole, especially at high water events…

I think it’s going to look pretty darn interesting as it comes flying through this hole.

This is the part that’s the hardest to figure out what they’re doing. This part makes sense, sort of…

But I have no clue how they’re going to tie this together with the rest of the creek. Because of the weather, I have a feeling it will be a little while before it gets done.

I did find the breach around the upper coffer dam. It’s not much of one and looks like it barely wore away the edge of the shore, but there was a consistent flow of water going through.

This breach was enough to fill the first stretch of the project that was completed. The water on both sides of the coffer dam are now at the same level.

The snow obscures it a bit, but I tried to take pictures from the same spots that I’ve taken them in the past. I think it gives you a pretty good sense of just how much water is now in here.

From where I took the following pictures, two weeks ago it looked like this.

Now there is no sign of any rock, the water has completely covered it.

The section directly in front of the downstream coffer dam was the deepest and there was a pump running constantly to keep the water out. Two weeks ago it looked like this. Notice the generator on the far left hand side.

Luckily they pulled the generator away from the coffer dam. You can also get a feel for how bad the mud was when it was raining.

It would have been a big disappointment to have to haul the generator out of this…

The 10 day forecast has things going back to normal, but that’s in the 30′s with night time temps below freezing. The couple of days where it does come close to 40 degrees, it says it will be raining. There’s a lot of ice and water that needs to go away. I have a feeling it’s going to be awhile before the project gets rolling along again.

I may have to brave the mud the next time I come here, I really want to get closer when all the ice and snow starts going away. I’d like to get some pictures of how much the water has covered all that rock. I’ll just have to hope my cat like skills are still alive in me somewhere and work on mud, but at least if I find out they don’t work, the landing will be softer.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, After the Rain

3 Replies

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
____________

After raining for over 24 hours and dumping a fair amount of rain on the area, curiosity got the better of me and I had to go take a look at the Blackberry Creek dam removal site. I had already checked the USGS Stream Flow Gage for Blackberry Creek. Normal for this time of year has the creek flowing at 48 Cubic Feet per Second. The last time I looked the creek was flowing along at 172 CFS.

USGS Real Time Stream Flow Data for Blackberry Creek

Years ago someone explained to me how the Gage Height in Feet works, but it didn’t make any sense then and 12 years later and looking at it on a regular basis, it still doesn’t make any sense. When the creek is practically dry and I can walk across parts of it without even getting my ankles wet, the flow is about 20 CFS, but the Gage Height in Feet says it’s at 3.15 feet.

Okay, compared to what?

The closest I got to the creek was the hill that overlooks it. Taking pictures at that distance didn’t make any sense and getting closer was out of the question. I’ve had more than enough bad experiences on muddy shores next to flooded rivers to know walking down there would be stupid, but what follows is what I saw.

Above is a shot of the channel right after they finished this section. If I were standing on the creek bed at this spot it would easily be six feet down. On the upstream end it’s maybe 18 inches. The whole stretch is filled with water. On the shallow end you can barely see the tops of the rocks. On the deep end you can’t see any rocks at all, they’re completely under water.

In the shot above is the pump that runs continuously to drain any extra water out while they were working on this stretch. I couldn’t see the pump at all so I’m assuming it was buried under the water.

It took a lot to fight the urge to go down to the first coffer dam to see if it was breached or if the water had collected this much in this stretch. When the ground was pretty well frozen it was hard to walk on the layer of mud. After this thaw and all the rain, I wasn’t really in the mood to be taking a mud bath if something went wrong.

The water was flowing pretty strong through the bypass and into the pond and it looked like the whole pond had come up a good foot.

The temperatures are going back down below freezing for the next five days and even below zero is called for on Thursday night. This should do a pretty good job of freezing all the mud and the water level in the creek should start going back down.

When I get out there on Sunday to check it out, it should be interesting to see how it all looks and maybe I won’t get myself killed in the process.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Brief Interlude

4 Replies

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
____________

There was a lot of noise all week coming from the dam removal project on the other side of the river. When I got there this morning I expected to see a lot of progress. Progress there was, but they’re digging a ditch for the bypass channel.

Picture a ditch.

I couldn’t, so I didn’t take any pictures.

It’s a ditch.

Maybe next week it will be more picture worthy.

Till then, you might like to listen to some music.

Or, if you’re not so inclined, here’s a picture of a possum.

That’s right, a possum.

Blackberry Creek Dam Removal Update, Mostly Done With One Section

6 Replies

To play catch up, you can read the past progress reports here.
____________

In case you haven’t done it, you might want to download this pdf of the construction plans first. I’m fascinated by this stuff.

Whenever I see a bunch of construction equipment lined up nice and neat at a construction site, it usually means they are done with one part of a project and waiting for the next to begin. Up until this day the equipment was spread out all over the construction site.

On the down side of the dam, it’s hard to tell that anything has been changing. All of the water is still coming through a breach on the east side.

On the west side of the dam a metal retaining wall is propped in place. I’ll get to more on that further down in this post.

Back at the construction site where I’ve been documenting things as they move along, it looks like they finished riffle number three and also finished all the shore structure that goes along with it.

They have even laid down the layer of grass seed embedded stuff made out of coconut. I know this stuff has a name, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

They’ve even thrown down grass seed where the cover ends and the dirt begins. Seems a little premature to me considering that it’s January and the ground is pretty well frozen. I’m sure they’ll be putting down more come March.

What seems a little odd to me is that they left a fair amount of dirt in place on the creek bed where riffle number three ends. The dirt is at just about the same level where the riffle ends.

The dirt goes on for about 50 feet then abruptly slopes down to the creek bed.

I’ve waded a lot of the Fox River and almost a dozen of the creeks that feed into the Fox. I’ve also fished a number of other rivers and creeks in Northern Illinois. All of them have hard rock bottoms even in the more level, slower sections. Flowing water will always wear everything away down to rock. After a year or two of high, fast water events, all this dirt is going to get washed away. Especially since it’s sitting at the bottom of that man made riffle. The churning water at the end of the riffle will do a pretty good job of getting rid of all this dirt.

In the following image you can see the difference in the rock on the opposite shore where the dirt slopes down to the creek bed.

I already know what’s going to happen. All that dirt is going to get blown out, including the dirt under the rocks. The rocks are going to slide down the now man made embankment to fill the void and expose more of the shore to erosion. I’ll bet they come back here in a couple of years to dump more rock along this 50 foot stretch in order to fill in what slid down into the creek.

We’ll see.

Right now it looks like a pretty well manicured channel waiting for water.

At normal water levels, right about where I was standing to take that picture, it will be about two feet deep because of riffle number two that they built. I want to come here when the creek is flowing high, fast and muddy to see what it does to all this rock.

The next phase will be an interesting feat of engineering. Now they have to remove the upper coffer dam, cut off the flow that has been diverted through the park pond, and redirect the creek to what they are calling a temporary drop outlet.

Basically they have to go from here…

To here…

Through here…

And I’m assuming at that point the creek will be flowing through these…

Connecting up to this…

And winding up back in the creek once they take out that metal retaining wall you saw in the picture back at the top of this post. Then they can start dredging out the next stretch.

I have a feeling that’s going to take a little longer than the stretch they just completed.

Barely a hundred yards upstream of the coffer dam, you would never know you were standing right near this construction site. Maybe some day the reclaimed part of the creek will look like this, but I have a feeling it won’t be in my life time.

The creek is flowing along like it probably has been for a few thousand years, oblivious to anything man is doing further down stream. Down at creek level I stood on the bank at the only spot where the creek could be easily accessed.

A few years ago I fished from that spot up stream for a good half mile. The usual carp were around. Caught some creek chubs, rock bass and largemouth bass. Hopefully when the dam is gone the smallies will come in and replace the largemouth.

But remember what I said about that being the only easily accessible spot. If you come fish here, after hiking up stream to fish, you’re going to want to wade back down stream to get out at this easily accessible spot.

I didn’t do that.

I thought it would be much quicker to cut through the woods to get back to my car.

That trip back to my car easily makes my top ten list of Stupidest Things I’ve Ever Done While Out Fishing Creeks.

You’ll just have to take my word on it.